


savior complex

by hiinnys



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Harry-centric, Post-War, background r/h, rated t for some language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28905603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiinnys/pseuds/hiinnys
Summary: he doesn't entirely know what convinces him to buy it, but if there's anything the solid gold cauldron incident of '91 taught him, it's that he can be a bit of an impulsive buyer.or,harry, an iPod, and some post-war healing
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	savior complex

**Author's Note:**

> i don't entirely know what this is, but it's here.  
> i'm also on tumblr under the same user!  
> (p.s i thrive on comments, if you wanna leave one!)

he doesn’t entirely know what convinces him to buy it, but if there’s anything the solid gold cauldron incident of ‘91 taught him, it’s that he can be a bit of an impulsive buyer. and this time there’s no hagrid with him to tell him to be a bit more reasonable in his purchases. 

which is exactly how he ends up at ron and hermione’s flat, knocking on the door at six o’three p.m., asking hermione how to charm an iPod to sustain itself around magic. for her part, hermione gives him a look that harry takes roughly to mean _just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you have to buy useless shit,_ then proceeds to teach him how to charm the iPod. the pair then spend the better part of the next three hours teaching ron what the hell an iPod even is. 

when harry finally makes it home that night, he’s got a smile on his face and a catalogue of songs to load up on the device in his head.  
**  
“how does the music come out of it?”

“same way music comes out of the radio, gin.” 

“ok, but how do you get the music in it?” 

“you have to download it.”

“what the _fuck_ does that even mean?” 

it takes him a good minute to stop laughing. “i’ll teach you,” he promises.  
**  
he pops his headphones in when he’s running, let’s the music wash over him as he jogs mile after mile. it’s good for him, he thinks. reminds him that there’s no one chasing after him anymore, no green light he’s running towards. reminds him that he could run forever and there would be no fallout. he could disappear into himself and it would be alright. he would be missed, maybe, but not needed. 

it’s a strange peace, harry thinks, to not be needed.  
**  
“no offense, potter, but your music taste is shite.” 

he’s cooking dinner - some recipe mrs. weasley saw in _witch weekly_ that had ‘reminded her of him,’ or so she had said at dinner last week - when ginny comes strolling in, clad in a harpies jumper and a pair of his boxers, iPod in hand. 

“ouch,” he teases, eyes glued to her bare legs, and it’s really not possible that this is his life. “i’d like to see you do better, weasley.”

“oh, i will,” she’s traded out the iPod for a bottle of wine, brandishing it at him like a sword. “i’m literally gonna blow your mind.” 

he turns off the hob, closes the meter of space between them, whispers: “i can think of another way you can blow my mind.” 

the bottle ends up on the counter, next to the iPod, neither of which are touched again for the next two hours.  
**  
there’s a case at work involving a homicide, a little boy, a custody battle, a desperate godfather who looks harry dead in the eye and begs him not to let the boy end up with anyone else, and harry thinks dying was better than this. he finishes his paperwork early, barely registering the clamor of a case being solved around him, packs up his things and doesn’t hear robbards calling after him when he leaves the office. 

he floos home, sees ginny on the couch, a book in her lap, but it doesn’t ease the weight in his heart, doesn’t fill the air with room like it should. the panic sets in just then, because he keeps ending back up here. with this same weight and no fucking air in his lungs, no matter how far away he thinks he’s gotten from it. 

“harry,” the concern lines her forehead and he hates himself for putting that look in her eyes, for putting that fear in her heart. “what happened?” 

“i’m gonna go for a run,” he says, head underwater, a silent promise that he’ll explain when he gets back passing between them. 

ginny grabs the iPod off the coffee table - the one they picked out together because she hated the one he used to have before the flat was _theirs_ \- and hands it to him.  
**  
he takes his usual route, headphones in, playlist on shuffle. there’s a moment between songs when he’s bathed in a staticky silence where he wishes with everything left in him that he could call his own godfather, tell him about the case and the little boy with the big eyes that he thinks he could’ve been, in another life. the one who wouldn’t let go of his godfather’s hand. wishes he could tell him that, sometimes, harry wants to rip his own fucking heart out his chest, because it’s shattered beyond repair in some places and it bleeds too much every now and then and it drags him down, down, down. 

except he can’t, that voice in the back of his head whispers, because this is his life and it has a habit of being monstrous to the people he loves. 

but the music starts back up just then and the moment is gone and he turns around, starts running home.  
**  
it takes her four and a half months, but ginny finally learns both what downloading means and how to download songs onto the iPod. (not in that order, though.) 

she adds so many songs the thing runs out of space. when harry tells her as much, she looks him dead in the eyes and says: 

“what the crap does that mean, harold?” 

so harry spends the next hour explaining to her exactly what the crap that means.  
**  
he runs through her additions to the playlist when he’s heading home from the office, working out, doing the laundry, and cooking because, yes, it takes him that long to listen to everything she’s added. 

he can’t say he’s particularly surprised by her music choice - it fits her entirely too well for him to be. what he can say is that he’s a bit shocked she knows (and has listened to) this much muggle music. so, in a manner of speaking, she does blow his mind. 

when he tells her this she laughs in his face for no less than five minutes and harry thanks her for being so graceful in her victory.  
**  
he finally considers the iPod a good purchase on a saturday, six months after he’s bought it. it’s laying around on the counter - as it usually does when it’s not in harry’s pocket - when ron spots it after dinner. 

(the four of them - ron, hermione, harry and ginny - make it a point to have dinner together once a month. it starts as a tradition carried on from the year the girls went back to hogwarts and the boys fell arse first into auror training, but it becomes a reminder to all of them to work a little less and enjoy each other’s company a lot more.) 

he - ron, that is - clicks through the playlist before seemingly finding a song he considers suitable, places the device on the coffee table, and holds his hand out for hermione. she accepts it and he twirls her around the living room a few times til she’s laughing harder than she can breathe and then they’re swaying, easily, gently, like they have nowhere to be. 

harry watches them a moment longer, heart warming in his chest, before turning to ginny. she meets his eyes, gives him that wicked smile he loves so much, and grabs for the iPod, changing the song to something energetic, something alive, something completely ginny. 

neither ron nor hermione have much time to be mad at her for the sudden tempo change because she’s rocketing off the couch, grabbing hermione’s hand and sending the two sailing around the room, dancing and jumping and laughing. 

it lights something in harry and he’s smiling at the two and laughing at the hand ron’s outstretched towards him and the saucy wink he’s given him. he grabs ron’s hand, lets him twirl and dip harry, lets him taunt the girls about how much better him and harry are at this, backs him up when he needs more witty retorts than any one person could handle. 

it goes on like this for some time. they’re dancing and singing (screaming, really) and the old man that lives down the hall is probably gonna yell at him and ginny in the morning, but harry couldn’t care less because he’s here, with his girlfriend in his arms and his best mates having it out about which one of them sang the line wrong. this, harry decides, is what it was all for. all the loss and the pain and the grief and every horrible thing there ever was. it all happened for this. for cheap wine and the best people and an iPod with a questionable amalgamation of probably dated muggle music, but damn him if it wasn’t worth it. 

and damn him if he wouldn’t do it all again just for another night like this.


End file.
